Two for the Road

How long are you going to resent the past?

Two for the Road is directed by Stanley Donen and written by Frederic Raphael. It stars Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn. Music is by Henry Mancini and Christopher Challis is the cinematographer. Film basically deconstructs in non-linear fashion the relationship between Joanna (Hepburn) and Mark Wallace (Finney). Set out on the road as the couple meet, go on vacation, fall out and make up, narrative is threaded over a 12 year period.

Donen and Raphael have crafted a picture that takes the many emotional strands of a man and woman relationship, and lays them out bare for us all to see. It's this honest like approach, coupled with the two watchable lead actors, that really engages me personally...

"Joanna" (Audrey Hepburn) and husband "Mark" (Albert Finney) are taking a road-trip to the South of France where they are to attend the opening of a home designed by him for "Maurice" (Claude Dauphin) and "Francoise" (Nadia Gray). It's clear from the outset that this couple's days in the sunlit uplands have long passed and that they are really now just going through the marital motions. Along the route, though, Stanley Donen introduces us to this couple - using flashbacks - and we we discover the happier times as they met, commandeered an old jalopy, made love under the stars etc... We are also presented with the scenarios that led to the cracks developing, to their loss of trust in each other, to their own equally selfish behaviour and ult...